


Settlement

by whenyoudesertme (phrenk)



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenk/pseuds/whenyoudesertme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jun owns a bar.  Ohno tries to pick him up in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settlement

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted [here](http://whenyoudesertme.livejournal.com/24646.html). Fills my Jun/Ohno free square for rainbowfilling. This is for elfiepike, for reasons. ♥

There was no one behind the bar.

Clutching his overcoat tightly, Jun started forward and managed to run into the one customer in the whole place.

"I apologize," he said, bowing stiffly to the small man slumped onto the counter. The customer swiveled slightly on his stool, eyes taking Jun in curiously. Jun waited impatiently for the man to accept his apology, but instead those eyes just crinkled warmly around the edges as his face bloomed into a smile.

Jun twitched, caught between being irritated and charmed. Where the fuck was Aiba? Why was this guy in the bar alone?

A soft huff of laughter escaped the man's lips, only causing Jun's brows to crease further. Finally the spiky head leaned in a little toward Jun, and the man said, "I'll accept your apology by buying you a drink."

Jun snorted, but the guy's eyebrows just raised hopefully, making it hard for Jun to dismiss him outright. Instead he let his face soften a smidgen, remembering he was speaking to a guest of the bar.

"Thank you, sir, but I'm on duty." He hung his coat up on the coat-rack near the door and lifted the panel of the bar so he could step behind it.

"You can't drink, then, or you don't have to pay? I should be a bartender," the man mused.

Jun ignored this. "I see you have a drink already, sir, where did the idio--bartender who made it for you go?"

"Aiba-chan'll be back soon." This was accompanied with a beatific smile that set Jun's nerves further on edge. He was about to be rude to a guest of the bar when the door was pushed open from outside and the idiot Jun was looking for appeared.

"Ah, sorry, Matsujun! I just had to run upstairs to get something for Oh-chan," Aiba said, dipping his head repeatedly at both Jun and the stranger, as if that would get him off the hook with Jun.

"What if someone else had come in?" Jun hissed as Aiba joined him behind the bar.

"Aiba-chan gave me a message, for if anyone came," the small man broke in. Then he inclined his head, looking sheepish. "Ah, I forgot to give it to you, though."

"No one else came in, Oh-chan?" Aiba asked, leaning over the counter and smiling fondly at the guest.

A decisive shake of the head served as an answer, then the man leaned in conspiratorially. "I tried to buy him a drink." He chuckled afterward, a little ruefully, and Jun resolutely didn't feel guilty.

"So bold! Well, I will give you a tip on wooing Jun-kun--oww!" Jun shook out the hand that had just hit Aiba smartly on the head.

"I apologize for the blithering you've been forced to endure, sir," Jun said tightly.

"No one forced him," Aiba muttered, but the guest's face only screwed up even more happily.

"I still haven't accepted your first apology," he said, looking innocently at Jun. "And now I have another."

Jun stared at him, the kind of stare that made most people blanch, but this guy held his gaze easily.

"Sir--"

"If I can't buy you a drink, let me draw you."

"Oooh, lucky!" Aiba said, bumping Jun's shoulder with his.

Jun considered how to reject this offer, but gave it up when the door swung open again. A group of salarymen came in, calling for drinks and heading for their usual table, and Jun bowed, moving quickly to fix their orders. While he worked, if he saw a sketchbook appearing in the small man's hands, he pretended he didn't.

*

When Jun ambled back over to the person with the sketchbook fifteen minutes later, he was in a much better mood. He'd nearly forgotten Aiba leaving their business unattended, at least until later when he could berate Aiba at length, and he didn't care about some weird (charming) patron not accepting his apologies. The salarymen were still going strong back in the corner, and a group of female college students had taken over a table on the other side, so Jun was pleased with the profit they'd be making that night. Sometimes he thought starting a bar with his best friend was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, but other times, like now, he felt hopeful that it might actually work.

"Ah, Matsumoto-san," came a soft voice. Jun turned, trying not to scowl at Aiba's friend.

"Would you like another drink, sir?"

"I finished. Would you like to see?" The man pushed his sketchbook over the counter, and Jun, despite himself, stepped closer so he could see what was on it.

"Are you messing with me?" he snapped. The page was taken up almost entirely by two giant eyebrows, around which miniature figures (clearly Jun, the guy did have talent) scrambled and jumped and served drinks as if they were in a video game and the eyebrows were the game surfaces.

The man looked hurt. "No, I... I tried to start with your bangs, but you don't have any, but you'd look so good with them down... but I couldn't imagine, so I made the hair into part of an eyebrow instead, and then you--"

"Sir, would you like another drink?" Jun said, squeezing his eyes shut for patience.

"Could I see you with your bangs down sometime? We could go out to dinner."

Jun looked at the man in disbelief. He was very tan, with round cheeks and dark eyes and a face that was by turns blank and expressive, and he was clearly entirely incapable of reading the atmosphere.

On a whim, the source of which Jun didn't want to examine, he played along. "I'm sorry, my bangs are very particular, and they don't go down for just anybody."

He'd thought the man might be embarrassed by the innuendo, but instead he was met with a snicker. "I don't accept that apology either. Now we really have to go to dinner."

Jun snorted, amused by the guy's guts. "I don't even know your name, sir--" He cut off as the man pointed down at the sketchbook, and Jun belatedly saw that it was signed. Ohno Satoshi.

"Ohno-san, I am flattered by your invitation, but my bangs and I respectfully decline."

"Three unaccepted apologies," Ohno started mournfully, but Jun waved him off.

"You accepted two of them when you drew this--this thing. Now, sir, I see that your glass is empty. Allow me to bring you another drink." He paused, then added, "On the house."

It was worth it to see that eye-crinkling smile again.

*

"No, see, you just have to wear him down, he--" Aiba's whispering cut off abruptly as Jun neared, and Jun decided that he hadn't heard anything.

"Table three is waiting on their drinks, Aiba-san."

Aiba scurried away, leaving behind an Ohno who looked decidedly more tipsy than the last time Jun had been to this end of the bar.

"Matsumo, Matsu--Matsumoto-san." Ohno's voice slurred over the syllables, sounding more sleepy than drunk.

"Would you like me to call you a cab, Ohno-san?" Jun asked politely. Ohno tilted a little more precariously to the side, smiling at Jun.

"Come home with me?"

Jun couldn't help but grin. "Sir, usually when someone turns down a drink, you don't offer dinner, and when someone turns down dinner, you don't ask them to come home with you. Just so you know."

"Ah," Ohno said, nodding like he was making a mental note. "Want to make out in the bathroom, then?" He waggled his eyebrows at Jun.

Jun repressed the part of him that wanted to take Ohno up on the offer and focused on the amusement in his chest, amusement that felt almost like it was verging on affection.

"I'll call you a cab."

Ohno leaned heavily against him as they walked out to the street, but Jun didn't protest. Ohno felt sturdy and warm, and besides, Jun didn't want to be rude to a guest.

*

The convenience store doors whooshed open, and a voice called lazily, "Welcome."

"Nino," Jun said, walking around so he could see the clerk. "Aren't you supposed to be enthusiastic? Or at least look up?"

Nino shrugged, still playing his game. "I could see it was you from the security camera." He twitched an elbow down toward the screen in his line of sight.

"How long have your onigiri been out this time?"

"Sho-chan made them before he left, only about half an hour ago. I don't think he fucked them up, but maybe you'd be better with something else."

Jun's stomach decided it was worth the risk, especially since he only had Nino's word that Sho was not to be trusted with food. "At least they're fresh."

When he got back over to the counter with his onigiri and tea, Nino paused his playing and scanned Jun's items, but he didn't slide them back over the counter. Jun paid, watching Nino suspiciously.

"Ahh, October, when young bartenders' minds turn to love," Nino sighed obnoxiously.

"Give me my food."

"I heard you rejected a hot guy at the bar tonight, Jun-kun. What, your standards too high?"

"I don't want to date a customer, give me my food, Nino."

"Aiba-chan says he drew you a picture. Are you holding out for someone who writes you a poem?"

Jun sighed, giving up on his food for the moment. "Did you write your wife a poem, is that why she married you, you little troll?"

"Yuriko wrote me one," Nino said smugly. "It was the day after she spent the night at my place for the first time, and she sent me an ode to my--"

"Give me my fucking food, Nino!"

"Touchy. Maybe if you'd gone home with that guy, you wouldn't be so uptight." He slid the bag over to Jun and picked up his DS.

Jun sighed. "See you tomorrow night, Nino."

"Sleep well, Jun-chan. If you get food poisoning from Sho's onigiri, I have it on the security camera footage that I warned you."

*

Jun made it safely through the night without getting food poisoning from the dubious onigiri.

He did get a picture mail from an unknown number the next morning. When he opened it up, all he could do was stare.

It was Ohno, that was immediately clear. How someone could be so recognizable when looking so different, Jun wasn't sure. Ohno's bangs were down, a neat fringe of hair that gave the appearance it had been cut just for the picture. He was looking into the camera with a droll expression, and Jun realized that his own expression of surprise had morphed into a smile.

Aiba had given Ohno the number, no doubt. The question was, did Jun want to mail back?

Hand scrunching through his just-washed hair, Jun went to the bathroom mirror and experimented. It wasn't like he hadn't seen himself with his bangs down before, but he'd never thought about how it would look to other people. No one ever saw him that way unless they were seeing him as he woke up, and those were people with whom Jun didn't worry about appearances, at least before 8am.

This was a stranger, a weird, charming stranger, and it would be in a small picture on a cellphone, with his bangs down on purpose.

Jun decided that how he looked with his bangs down was irrelevant. The real question was whether he wanted to encourage further communication with Ohno or not.

He aimed his cellphone camera at the mirror and snapped. There hadn't really been any question in the first place.

*

Jun told himself he wasn't disappointed when he didn't see the spiky hair of one particular customer when he came in that night. He wasn't disappointed. He wasn't--wait, wasn't that slump Ohno's?

Waving distractedly at Aiba, Jun headed straight to the table in the farthest corner, the dark booth from which he sometimes had to oust couples who were making out. Those rounded shoulders coupled with a lazy sort of stillness felt very familiar.

When he caught a glimpse of the side of the customer's face, he slid into the booth and stared across it. The overhead lights didn't reach this particular corner all that well, but he could see it was Ohno, he could see Ohno was smirking, and he could see that Ohno's bangs were down.

When he wasn't making a twee expression, and when his hair was mussed attractively rather than neatened ridiculously...

Jun blurted out, "You're adorable."

Ohno's eyes widened, and then he laughed, head tilting back to show his throat, and Jun was ten seconds away from dragging him to the bathroom to have his way with him.

"How old are you?" Jun asked, not even embarrassed yet because he was still so dazed by this even cuter Ohno. "Your hair should always be like that, it's so cute."

Ohno leaned in, still chuckling, but his eyes were dark and one hand slid across the table to brush Jun's. "I still haven't accepted one of your apologies."

Jun swallowed further praise and waited, ready to skive off work without another thought.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Ohno's hand was very warm, and Jun spared a moment to take in the sight of the delicate veins and long fingers before snapping his gaze back up like a challenge.

"You may not."

Tilting his head, Ohno made a disappointed noise, but his eyes were entirely confident and his lips were still curled up smugly.

"Can I take you to dinner?"

Jun shook his head slowly, not breaking eye-contact. He was on the edge of his seat, ready to snatch Ohno's hand (or that tanned, graceful wrist) and tow him out of the bar.

"Come home with me?" Ohno leaned in even closer, and the temperature seemed to rise several degrees.

Honestly, Jun had forgotten that question had come before the one on which he'd fixated: making out in the bathroom. But he breathed through his moment of adrenaline and grinned, making it predatory.

"I live upstairs." He brought his hand up to clasp Ohno's wrist, then paused, because Ohno was pouting at him. Jun was caught between finding him cute again and wanting to see that mouth swollen from kissing.

"I didn't get to ask my last question." Ohno was putting on mournfulness very well, Jun thought, except his smirk was still visible in the barest twist of his lips. Even if Jun hadn't seen that, the sudden heat of Ohno's other hand dropping onto Jun's knee and sliding up to squeeze would have made things clear.

"Go on then," Jun growled, and Ohno brightened, though his hand just rubbed more firmly. Jun sucked in his breath, trying to remember where they were.

"Want to make out in the bathroom?" Ohno replicated his eyebrow-waggling from the first time he'd asked, and Jun was surprised into a laugh. Then he finally snatched up Ohno's wrist, holding it more tightly than was necessary, and pulled him across the bar toward the door.

"I haven't paid for my drink," Ohno said mildly.

Jun ignored this and barked to Aiba on their way past the bar, "I'm taking the night off."

As the door swung shut behind them, Aiba shouted, "Yay!"

Pushing away the thought that Aiba was probably texting Nino right that moment, Jun grabbed his key from his pocket and unlocked the door to the stairs.

Ohno ventured, "I thought we were going to the bathroom?" He didn't sound disappointed, and a moment later Jun felt a hand on his ass.

He said briskly, "Sorry, but my place has a bathroom, if you're set on that."

Those fingers slid a few inches down and pressed _up_ , and Jun nearly tripped flat on his face.

Ohno said with satisfaction, "Apology accepted."


End file.
